28 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN sented in the guise of harsh realism, and the faithful, meticulous period re-creation makes It hard for us to connect with the heroine or wi th anything else Directed by Bruce Beres- ford, whose attitude toward the material is cold and literal, as if we were in need of a muckraking expose of the Victorian education of ladies. From a script by Eleanor Wit- combe; cinematography by Don McAlpine. (9/15/80 ) (Coronet; Oct. 1.... t]] Quad Cin- ema, starting Oct. 3.) GLORIA-With Gena Rowlands, John Adames, and Buck Henry; directed by John Cas- savetes (Cinema I.) THE GOOD EARTH (1937)-Having purchased Pearl S. Buck's celebrated Chinese-family saga, M-G-M sent an expedition to China wþich brought back two million feet of at- mospheric shots and eIghteen tons of cos- tumes, native animals, dismantled farm- houses, and a village shrine. Then five hundred California acres were landscaped and terraced to simulate a Chinese farm, locusts were rented for a scourge, and Oc- cIdentals were chosen for the leads, with Orientals in the supporting roles and as the babies. Luise RaIner, who had taken an Acad- emy Award for her Anna Held in "The Great Ziegfeld," won another for her monotonous yet affecting performance as the stoic O-Lan, the wife of the peasant Wang (Paul Muni); during the looting of a manor house, she picks up the jewels that raise the family out of starvation into prosperity But Wang, spoiled by wealth, loses contact with the good earth; he becomes infatuated with Lotus the dancer (TIlly Losch, who does a lot of finger-twirling) and takes her as his second wife, and his lust almost destroys the family. The locust plague brings him to his senses. It's a sermon melo- drama-a glorification of the passive, selfless, suffering mother O-Lan. (There isn't a shred of sympathy for Lotus, who is bought and sold) The film domesticates exoticism: it's as predictable as an Andy Hardy picture, but much more sober and much much longer. With Walter Connolly as the scoundrelly un- cle, Charley Grapewin as the family patri- arch, Keye Luke and Roland Lui as the sons, Jessie Ralph, and Harold Huber. The script by Talbot Jennings, Tess Slesinger, and Claudine West was partly based on a stage version by Owen and Donald Davis. This film, which was four years in the making, is dedicated to its producer, Irving Thalberg, who died in 1936; his associate, Albert Lewin, completed it. The first director, George Hill, who had supervised shooting the back- ground footage in China, committed suicide, and the project was taken over by Sidney Franklin who directed with his usual lack of Imagination, individuality, and style. He was the M-G-M heavyweight champ. Herbert Stothart was in charge of the music; the mon- tage work is by Slavko V orkapich; Arnold Gillespie headed the special-effects depart- ment that produced the visually exciting locust attack The cinematographer was the great Karl Freund In sepia. (Mini Cinema; starting Oct. 10.) THE GREAT SANTINI (called "The Ace" on Home Box Office)- This slice-of-family-life melo- drama features Robert Duvall in the Bruce Dern role (the military-psychopath father) and Michael O'Keefe in the Richard Thomas role (the sensitive, thoughtful teen-age on) Adapted from Pat Conroy's autobiographical novel "The Great Santini," the movie is set In 1962 in Beaufort, South Carolina, where Conroy grew up, but (as written for the screen and directed by Lewis J ohn Carlino) it takes place in the TV land of predictabili- ty-that plain of dowdy realism where a boy finds his manhood by developing the courage to stIck to hIS principles and stand up to his father With Blythe Danner, who comes close to creating a believable woman out of an idealized mother figure, and brings in shad- Ings that help to suggest a real family, though she doesn't have a single scene that is really hers Also with Lisa Jane Persky as the family comic, Theresa Merritt as the house- keeper, David Keefe as a redneck, and Paul Mantee. (9/1/80) (Greenwich Playhouse 1, Guild, and Embassy 72nd St.) GyPSY (1962 )-An extremely unpleasant ver- sion of the Broadway musical based on Gypsy Rose Lee's memoirs Rosalind Russell is the psychopa thIC stage mother who uses and de- S-M-T-W-T-F-S 5 ( 6 I 7 I I : II I stroys everyone wi thin reach of her excrucia t- ingly loud voice. Natalie Wood is the daugh- ter Russell rants at, and Karl Malden gets it, too. Mervyn LeRoy's direction is heavy and coarse, and the script and other credit match. (Carnegie Hall Cinema; Oct. 5.) HAMLET (1948)-Laurence OlIvier produced and directed this fluid, handsome, satisfyingly paced version, and he himself is a witty and active platinum-blond Hamlet. It is a tribute to Shakespeare's passionate immediacy that everyone has his own idea of the play, and many will find much to quarrel with in this film. (For example, the soliloquies have been turned in to interior monologues, which diminishes them.) But even if you feel that certain scenes should be done differently, when has the rest öf the play been done so well? Whatever the omissions, the mutila- tions. the mistakes, this is very likely the most exciting and most alive production of "Hamlet" we will ever see on the screen. It' never dull, and if characters such as Fortin- bras and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been sacrificed, it's remarkable how little they are missed With Jean Simmons as Ophe- lia, Basil Sydney as the King, Eileen Herlie as the Queen, Stanley Holloway as the Grave Digger, Felix Aylmer as Polonius, Norman Wooland as HoratIo, Terence Morgan as Laertes, Esmond Knight as Bernardo, Antho- ny Quayle as Marcellus, Harcourt Williams as First Player, and John Laurie as Francis- co The adaptation is by Alan Dent, and the music is by William Walton. (Thalia; Oct. 8.) HANDS ACROSS THE TABLE (1935)-Carole Lom- bard as a manicurist on the lookout for a wealthy husband meets Fred MacMurray, a fellow who grew up rich but is now broke and intends to marry an heiress. Cynical about romance, these two hang out together while waiting to land their prospective mates. Hers IS to be a kindly millionaire (dreary Ralph Bellamy); his is the pineapple king's daughter (Astrid Allwyn). But what you ex- pect to happen happens As the manicurist puts it, in blunt, archetypal thirties terms- "Hardboiled Hannah was going to fall in love with a bankroll! You can't run away from love" This isn't one of the first-string slap- stick romances of its period, but it's a pretty fair example of the second string. Basically uninspired, it's determinedly irreverent You can see the jokes being set up; when the payoff comes, you're already tired But Mac- Murray knows how to read a good line when he gets one, and though he isn't the subtlest of farceurs, that works just fine with Lombard because of her gift for uninhibited comedy Lombard is the rare performer whose en- joyment of her own joke add to the audience's pleasures Mitchell Leisen, direct- ing his first comedy, had Ernst Lubitsch, the production chief at Paramount, guiding him. With William Demarest, Ruth Donnelly, Mane Prevust. and Edward Gargan From a Viña Delmar story, adapted by Norman Krasna, Vincent Lawrence, and Herbert Fields. Cinematography by Ted Tet.daff (Theatre 80 St Marks; Oct. 6.) HARDCORE (1979)-George C Scott i the Cal- vinist father from Grand Rapids who searches for his runaway teen-age daughter in the porno-prostitution world of California The father feels no temptation, so there's no contest; he's above sex and he hates porno the way dug hate cats The writer-director Paul ( , / J II' . \ 1J1 1J))fó) .. --.... ..... ... " ,1....r1 --tfi. , o' o . , · I J o I' , . . , I Schrader, sets up the picture as a demonstra- tion of the superiority of fundamentalist mor- al values over pornographic laxness-as if there were nothing in between It's a de- tached, opaque, affectionle muvie; since it doesn't regard the young whores as human, there's no horror in their dehumanlzation- only frigid. sensationalism. With Peter Boyle and Season Hubley (2/19/79) (St Marks Cinema, Oct. 3-9.) HEAVEN CAN WAIT (1978)-We all can wait for something better, in spite of the acting con- tributions of Warren Beatty, as a dead foot- ball player intent on being reincarnated; of Julie Christie, as a gutsv English girl in love with him, of James Ma on, as a heavenly guardian angel; and-most startling of all- in spite of a script by the tremendously intel- ligent Elaine May, in collaboration with Beatty. (Bleecker St Cinema; Oct. 9.) HE KNOWS YOU'RE ALONE-With Don Scardino and Caitlin O'Heaney, directed by Armand Mastroianni. (86th St. East; through Oct 2. . . . f1I National; through Oct. 9.) HOPSCOTCH-With Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, and Ned Beatty; directed by Ronald Neame. (Loews New York I, and Loews State 2.) HULLABALOO OVER GEORGIE AND BONNIE'S PICTURES- With Peggy Ashcroft, Larry Pine, Victor Banerjee, and Aparna Sen; directed by James Ivory (New Yorker 1 ) IN GOD WE TRUST-With Marty Feldman, Louise Lasser, Peter Boyle, and Andy Kaufman; di- rected by Feldman (Eastside Cinema, and Rivoli. . . . f1I R.K.O. 86th St.; through Oct 9.. . f1I R.K.O Cinerama 2; starting Oct. 3.) JUDGE PRIEST (1934 )-Some Irvin S. Cobb stories brought to the screen by John Ford. Viewed now, this piece of Americana about a trial in a Kentucky town in 1890 is also a slice of old Hollywood: the cast includes Will Rogers, Anita Louise, Rochelle Hudson, Hattie McDaniel, and that much maligned comedian, Stepin Fetchit (Regency, Oct. 5- 6.) KAGEMUSHA THE SHADOW WARRIOR-With Tatsuya Nakadai, directed by Akua Kurosawa. In Japanese (Plaza; starting Oct. 10.) A liTTLE ROMANCE (1979)-A very, very little film about very, very little people (played by Diane Lane and Thelonious Bernard), enact- ing a latter-day Romeo and Juliet, to whom they are poetIcally knee-high. Arthur Hill plays a wise-looking mogul, with not many wise lines to say; Laurence Olivier lightens the general mediocrity with a performance as a debonair and blithe Frenchman who be- friends the children. One might almost be watching him in Restoration comedy; he saves his part with the peculiar daintiness that he brings to mischievously trivial roles Directed by George Roy Hill (5/7/79) (Car- negIe Hall Cinema; Oct 8.) MAKE ROOM FOR T OMORROW- With Victor Lanoux and Jane Birkin, directed by Peter Kassovitz. In French. (Paris; through Oct. 9 ) THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT (1951)-Alec Guin- ness has often been at his comic best in the role of an ordinary man with an obsession, and who can be as ordinary and obsessed as an inventor? In thi film, he plays a quirky, idealistic scientist who lives in the modern economy of quick obsolescence yet is fixated on the long-range benefits to humanity of a cloth that will stay clean and last forever. Guinness' bland monomaniacal scientist is beautifully matched by Juan Greenwood, who IS all guile and scorn and perversity, without any real aim or purpose Alexander Macken- drick directed this deft capital-science-labor comedy With Cecil Parker, and Ernest Thes- iger as a half-dead industrialist Screenplay by Roger MacDougall, John Dighton, and Mackendrick. (Item for collectors of movie memorabilia: the gurgling, bubbling squirts and drips of the hero's experimental apparat- us were joined to a rhythm and issued by Coral Records a "The White Suit Samba ") (Theatre 80 St Marks; Oct 9.) THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER (1942)-In the thirties, the unctuous, sentimental Alexander W oollcott was loved by millions of radio lis- teners; Woollcott the outrageous master of euphoniou insults was loved and hateù by a small circle Two members of this circle, George S Kaufman and Moss Hart, made him the hero and the target of their 1939 Broadway hlt-a cheerful spoof on celebrity